1. Field of the Disclosure
The following application is directed to a CMP pad conditioner, and more particularly to a CMP pad conditioner utilizing a ceramic, glass, or glass-ceramic substrate and a vitreous bonding layer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the fabrication of electronic device, multiple layers of various types of material are deposited including for example conducting, semiconducting, and dielectric materials. Successive deposition or growth and removal of various layers results in a non-planar upper surface. A wafer surface that is not sufficiently planar will result in structures that are poorly defined, with the circuits being nonfunctional or exhibiting less than optimum performance. Chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) is a common technique used to planarize or polish workpieces such as semiconductor wafers.
During a typical CMP process a workpiece is placed in contact with a polishing pad and a polishing slurry is provided on the pad to aid in the planarization process. The polishing slurry can include abrasive particles which may interact with the workpiece in an abrasive manner to remove materials, and may also act in a chemical manner to improve the removal of certain portions of the workpiece. The polishing pad is typically much larger than the workpiece, and is generally a polymer material that can include certain features, such as micro-texture suitable for holding the slurry on the surface of the pad. Moreover, during a polishing operation, a pad conditioner is typically employed to move over the surface of the polishing pad to clean the polishing pad and properly condition the surface to hold slurry.
Polishing pad conditioning is important to maintaining a desirable polishing surface for consistent polishing performance, since over time the polishing surface of the polishing pad wears down, smoothing over the micro-texture of the polishing surface. Additionally, debris from the CMP process can clog the micro-channels through which slurry flows across the polishing surface. Conventional polishing pad conditioning is achieved by abrading the polishing surface mechanically with a pad conditioner, typically consisting of a metal substrate, a brazed metallic bonding layer and diamonds or other abrasive particles held within the bonding layer. However, such conventional conditioners have problems, including geometry irregularities, abrasive grain “pull out”, and chemical corrosion of the bonding layer.
Accordingly, the industry continues to demand improved CMP pad conditioners and methods of forming thereof.